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Interesting article but I for one genuinely prefer libraries to syntactic language changes. We do not need another language among the thousands already there.

jimbokun 18y ago
"Interesting article but I for one genuinely prefer libraries to syntactic language changes." I feel like there is some terminology confusion here (I already replied to someone else in the same vein). I think it makes more sense to say "I prefer libraries that do not introduce syntactic language changes to ones that do." Technically, I would say Objective-J is a Javascript library, in addition to being a language in and of itself. I think that Prototype, jQuery, etc. also add some syntactic changes, so I would say the difference is one of degree, not of kind.
- newt0311 18y ago
  At that point, we are venturing into LISP territory where the line between mini-language and library is truly thin (and sometimes non-existant like in the CL loop macro). My standard: Can a common JS interpreter (say firefox) execute the code without modifications? If that is true, then said "thing" is a library.
  - jimbokun 18y ago
    "LISP territory where the line between mini-language and library is truly thin" Which demonstrates how successful Brandon Eich was when he set out to make Javascript a Lisp-like language.
  - paddy_m 18y ago
    Check out parenscript. http://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/ http://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/ It is the only non js way of coding js that ever made sense to me. I saw Vladmir speak at an event and he got js and lisp. I have looked through some of the code for parenscript and although I'm not a lisp expert I could grok what it was doing. I could also see how I could write my own macros if I put my mind to it. One huge advantage of compiling to js is that it makes obfuscation and compression a lot easier (this is true for GWT, objective-j, pyjamas, and parenscript).

jimbokun 18y ago

"Interesting article but I for one genuinely prefer libraries to syntactic language changes." I feel like there is some terminology confusion here (I already replied to someone else in the same vein). I think it makes more sense to say "I prefer libraries that do not introduce syntactic language changes to ones that do." Technically, I would say Objective-J is a Javascript library, in addition to being a language in and of itself. I think that Prototype, jQuery, etc. also add some syntactic changes, so I would say the difference is one of degree, not of kind.

newt0311 18y ago
At that point, we are venturing into LISP territory where the line between mini-language and library is truly thin (and sometimes non-existant like in the CL loop macro). My standard: Can a common JS interpreter (say firefox) execute the code without modifications? If that is true, then said "thing" is a library.
- jimbokun 18y ago
  "LISP territory where the line between mini-language and library is truly thin" Which demonstrates how successful Brandon Eich was when he set out to make Javascript a Lisp-like language.
- paddy_m 18y ago
  Check out parenscript. http://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/ http://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/ It is the only non js way of coding js that ever made sense to me. I saw Vladmir speak at an event and he got js and lisp. I have looked through some of the code for parenscript and although I'm not a lisp expert I could grok what it was doing. I could also see how I could write my own macros if I put my mind to it. One huge advantage of compiling to js is that it makes obfuscation and compression a lot easier (this is true for GWT, objective-j, pyjamas, and parenscript).